When the Italian physician Luigi Galvani published his theory of "animal electricity" in the 1790s, it roused biologists and physicists all over Europe, went on to influence the construction of the first electric battery and inspired an 18-year-old English girl to write "Frankenstein."
Galvani was working at the University of Bologna in what were then the Papal States. In 1780 he made one of those chance scientific observations that change the course of history: He saw an assistant who was operating a static-electricity generator accidently touch a steel scalpel to the sciatic nerve of a dissected frog. The frog's legs started twitching.
Of course, "chance observations" only change the world when the right person sees them. Galvani went on to show that muscle contractions would occur when an electric charge was applied to muscles or nerves. He thought his work demonstrated the existence of "animal electricity," as distinct from "natural electricity" (lightning) and "artificial electricity" (static electricity generated by friction).